Archive of Our Own

“Delivery, uh. Uh. Right. Sir. Delivery.”

And what a Sir. The man at the door left little room between himself and frame. And what there was, was hairy. He was stripped to the waist, and there were many small beads of sweat playing chest hair pachinko. He had to angle himself to fit both biceps in a standard door frame.

“Sorry-- sir. Delivery. I’m-- reading this--- sorry.”

It was a lot of man, and Ken really needed to pay attention to get through the interaction unscathed. Ordinarily he did a pre-flight check on himself before making deliveries, Getting assigned male by whoever answered the door was not automatic, no matter how much expensive and grudgingly prescribed testosterone went into his veins. A brief cough to feel that roughness in the throat, shoulders squared up, face set in an expression that wasn’t fuck-you but wasn’t NOT fuck-you. Presenting male.

Mostly it was mentality. Allowing a trickle of irritation out of that pent-up dam to school his face. That, at least, was easy.

Usually.

The problem was, on his entrance to Ruhk Ken had found a piece of paper that was occupying his full attention.

It read “A MAN SHOULD” and then there was a small [9/30] in the bottom right hand corner. There were more colors in the font, and more fonts in the font, than seemed possible.

A MAN SHOULD... what? Good question. He’d been asking himself it, continuously, for fifteen years. Even so, it had never been more urgent. He needed to know, he NEEDED to know.

“Delivery!” the man boomed. It sounded like it might’ve been a question, but he was too much man for such subtle inflections. “What’ve you got? I hope it isn’t toilet paper again. We can’t eat that. Man, we tried.”

A MAN SHOULD not look at the paper anymore, right? Ken tried to convince himself. He’d been looking at it for about ten to twelve hours. He was getting a little tired.

“Uh,” Ken tried to shift his attention away from the paper. Some residual attention managed to make its way around the full-bore processing of A MAN SHOULD. “Potatoes. I’ve got an entire truck full of potatoes. For... someone.”

“Oh. Me,” the man said, absolutely confident. “Hell yeah, potatoes.”

Sure. Ken shrugged.

He really needed to get back to reading the paper.

The man even had a manly smile. Unreserved, friendly, and, yet, a little menacing. Acquisitive. “Do you think you can bake with potatoes?”

“Uh,” Ken said. He looked up. Man. He looked at the paper. Man again. It was just about all he could do to keep abreast of current events. “Like... baked... potatoes?”

“Oh, yeah,” The man chewed on that. “Duh.” Ken had been undergoing intense hypnotic conditioning for half-day, so he had an excuse, at least. “I forgot about baked potatoes. Those aren’t, like, baked goods, though. Or are they?”

“Uh?” Ken said. He tried to say it in a manly way, but it was hard. A MAN SHOULD what-- roll his eyes? Growl? Start a fight? Or were there other options?

His truck full of potatoes had actually been destined for a processing facility four hundred and thirty miles distant. Except, while passing through an anonymous stretch of highway near the town of Ruhk, which as freeways went didn’t even have new and interesting billboards, a piece of paper had blown up and on to the windshield of his aging Peterbilt.

After that he’d had to stop and read it, and then read it again.

Ken had not intended to make a delivery, he vaguely recalled going for-- help? Yes. Because reading the same piece of paper for a dozen hours was not normal behavior.

He vaguely recalled that as well. But he’d knocked on a door and--- ‘delivery’ had slipped out. Oh well. A MAN SHOULD not admit mistakes. Right? The capital letters tore through him, rocking him back. They’d found a lot of room inside of him. What A MAN SHOULD was already a huge preoccupation, and then, when written with special ink, in a special pattern...

A MAN SHOULD... what? Crack knuckles. Stink.

Rage, part of him said.

The man plucked the piece of paper from his grasp. “Hey! Morgan is looking for these,” he said. “They’re a lot, huh? A man should. A man should what? Hey, I’m Brian, by the way.”

It should’ve been a relief, losing the paper, but it was still-- inside of him, rolling around.

“Do you know?” Ken said, eagerly, desperately, woozy. “What a man should?”

“A man should,” Brian said.

He shrugged.

“Hell if I know.”

---

Audrey had down pat the formula for being a trans girl in Ruhk. The only openly trans girl in Ruhk, although she had gotten e-mails from throwaway accounts with whispered, local hopes.

Obviously the key was being non-threatening, but that was a goal, not a system. She had to FIT. She had to make herself into a shape that slotted into the puzzle of town, and if she did, that shape could be mildly feminine.

After experimentation, Audrey had concluded that the safest look was butch lesbian, except she could wear cardigans and mom-like sweaters, at times.

---

Rivulets of the same three words splashed through him, a ceaseless, unending rain.

Ken had been trying to figure out what A Man Should his entire life.

He’d talked to other transmascs who felt total confidence in that part of it, and always envied the hell out of them, with not a little jealous resentment bubbling in his guts. They beheld some shining peak called masculinity, and although it was hard to reach, they never doubted the destination.

At no point had Ken felt anything similar. Even men’s wear, logically the easiest thing about being a boy, had been an uneasy journey. Basketball shorts and a band t-shirt. A tornado or a hurricane could dress a guy, if anywhere near a Goodwill. And yet, even lumberjack flannels and blue jeans had just led to doubts in the mirror. Was it trying too hard? Even when, frustrated, he’d punched a door or a wall, and left a mark -- was it a manly dent?

“Hmmm,” Brian pondered the question. Brian looked like his jawline alone could knock up a bunch of girls. “That’s tough. Let me ask the brain trust. Hey! Morgan! A man should what, you think? This guy got one of those brainwashing papers!”

The least male person Ken had ever seen appeared next to him. A yang of femininity to his yin. A girl of soft, spilling curves and dimples, with big, full lips. She wore oven mitts that were shaped like hearts, and was carrying a tray of somethings.

“Ooooh, those are a LOT, aren’t they? Well, I think a man should try these new cookies!” she chirped. “They’re made out of corn because I’m all out of wheat! And actually we’re kind of out of corn for a bit. So these are made out of... uhhh... well, there’s corn flakes in them, at least! And...”

Morgan screwed her pretty face up at the effort of thinking. Finally she shrugged. “I don’t know! Stuff! And sprinkles!”

They were mostly sprinkles, in a sludge of half-congealed mish-mash. Half were blue and half were pink. Their appearance was odd enough that Ken felt a smidge of mental confusion start to lift. The situation was strange, not least because Morgan’s nipples were just.. out. They were just half out of her shirt. He needed to go, certainly before she picked up a pink cookie and offered it to him, smiling. Clocked at the door, the worst thing of all. He tried not to close his eyes. The words were right there, behind his eyelids. He needed to sleep this... strangeness... off.

Run for it, a slender part of him said.

But then the girl picked up a blue one and offered it to him.

It was one of the nicest and most affirming things that had ever happened to him.

It was always nice to pass. Especially up against Brian, who looked like he had a YYY chromosome. Ken took the blue-speckled cookie. There was some sugar scent that was fighting through the other ingredients, and, despite everything, it smelled good. It smelled right.

In an early glee of getting the fuck out of his hometown, and especially out of range of his father, Ken had gone to Target and emerged with every stupid-ass male bullshit product there was, just for the joy of it. He’d even woken up the following day with a sort of man hangover, staring dismayed at the Dude Wipes and the american flag wifebeater shirt and the bass fishing hat, and reeking of Axe. It had felt cheap and pathetic. You couldn’t buy masculinity, or fake it by dumping pastel shades.

And yet.

Nothing more right in the entire world than taking a blue-colored cookie instead of a pink one.

Ken took it and bit into it. It felt good -- tasted bad but felt great -- in a strange way, a shock of pleasure that circulated around Ken’s body and came out of his mouth as a pleased, but surprised, grunt.

A grunt! And one that got a nod of approval from Brian. Solid male grunt, the nod said. A MAN SHOULD grunt, yes. He had a limited range of emotions, and grunting was one of them.

And then the man ruined it by, munching his own cookie, and finally finishing a thought.

“Yeah. A man should. Okay. I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, with what passed for a thoughtful expression. “Because its the only thing I can think of. The only thing I think a man should do, really do, is pick up his girl and dick her down so bad she can only talk with like, vowels, for the rest of the day. Everything else man is like, optional, but you gotta be able to dick down the girls. Am I right, baby?”

And for emphasis, Brian reached low, and lower, and grabbed at his cock. It was clearly enormous. It was big enough to make his shorts seem like they were spring-loaded.

A MAN SHOULD have a dick. The crude conditioning agreed. Obviously and of course. And look at it, swimming in those shorts, look at the girl eyeing it with obvious interest. Every man knew it, manhood shot itself out of a barrel. It was hardly a new thought, although ground in by too much reading of simple hypnotic instructions. He thought it all the time.

Rage, part of him thought.

“Like, possessiveness, that’s also key,” Brian said, warming to the theme. He was just stroking his dick, enjoying it. Had to be nice, walking around with a python. Had to feel good. “Look at the way I’m grabbing Morgan’s body, you know? Even though these are her privates, I’m totally comfortable pawing at her ass and her titties.”

“Ooh,” Morgan said, pleased. She inhaled, deeply, and Ken was sure -- smelling his dick. She’d clearly had it in her mouth, her ass, her pussy.

“And I already have consent, that’s key, that’s really key, because I have total confidence that I’m going to make Morgan here a complete drippy mess, just ruin her, completely blow her mind. And she can smell that confidence on me. Like, really smell it. A man should have such total trust from his girl that he can just stick his fingers in her pussy-- like this-- and she’ll just moan and hump your thumb. Yeah?”

“Uh,” Ken said. He shoved down the envy, the jealousy, the anger. What was he WATCHING? They were starting to have sex right in front of him, at the doorway. Brian had hiked up a brief skirt and stuck his fingers in a bare, cherry pussy. With total certainty that she was already dripping wet. His cock was a sequoia. It was twice the size of what Ken envied. It was like a third arm.

“And now-- okay, yeah, a man should definitely do this-- you can see she’s turning her brain off. She doesn’t need it. I’ve got everything handled. Yeah, see she’s--- oh. Okay. Something you wanted to add, Morgan?”

They both looked at Morgan, who had put her hand up, despite having four fingers inside of her, and being brazenly exhibited at the service alley. Brian had half picked her up. His muscles didn’t seem to mind the strain at all, despite Morgan carrying significant plush padding, and using only one hand. He was using his big cock to hold her up, the bastard. The unfairness of it all. A MAN SHOULD... what? What?

“You can think we can make cookies out of the potatoes maybe?” Morgan said, eventually.

---

Audrey logged off. She’d been too afraid to talk, again. Sometimes she told herself -- it made her more of a girl not to say anything. Talking during online video games was only for stupid girls, who wanted sustained and directed abuse. By keeping her mouth shut she was being a smart girl, that was all.

It was hard to lie to herself, inside of her own room, but she did try.

---

“Uhh.... Delivery?”

This was a farmhouse well outside of town. Ken was still unsure what he was doing there, or why he was still in town. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept. The inside of his head was a flurry of colors and fonts and a lot of dark-edged emotions.

A MAN SHOULD stay in Ruhk, because there was so much A MAN COULD learn there. Brian had dicked down his girlfriend in the doorway, for god’s sake. And besides, he was too tired and hyper to leave.

Plus the outdoor mall by the freeway, where the Ruhk Bakery was, it was-- masculine. The men there were men. They were stripped to the waist, nearly all of them. They had girders for shoulders. It was far too male for him to walk away from. There were answers in this town, even if he didn’t like them.

Many of the MEN were in the process of building a gym out. A lot of ingenuity was going into the gym. Someone had an enormous farming scale, and someone else had brought a full welding kit. Bits and bobs of metal were getting melded into roughly spherical weights. Another manly man with a grinder was turning a cut down street sign into a bar. A full half-dozen makeshift barbells had already been manufactured.

Ken had overheard a long but friendly argument over whether a newly emptied out medical clinic was going to be a brewery, or was going to be a foundry. The men had shook hands on a decision to make it both.

He was still twitchy and confused from prolonged exposure to potent hypnotics. The capital letters had settled in, and until he had an answer -- A MAN SHOULD -- Ken couldn’t go anywhere. A MAN SHOULD-- help? Fight? Build? What was it? What was he missing, besides the obvious thing, between his legs? Punch someone, but who, and where?

“Are you a pod person?” a girl poked her head out of the door. She had a streak of pink in her hair. There were also blonde highlights and brown locks, or maybe the other way around. She gave Ken a very long and very searching look, and kept the door half closed. “Hmm. Say something a normal guy would say.”

Always nice to pass, especially against this layer of scrutiny. “I don’t know,” Ken said. “Football. Quarterbacks.”

“Alright, good enough,” the girl opened the door. She wore black jean shorts that went down past her knees, and a tied-off sleeveless t-shirt that exposed a lot of armpit. She was flat. After a day in town, seeing girls that were very 3D, it took a moment for Ken to readjust to a more 2D type of woman. “You’ve been in town, right? You know what I mean? The manly menly men and the womanly womenly women?”

“Yeah?” Ken hazarded. “I figured they were... I thought this was a town for hot people? Like a health spa was nearby?” He was pretty sure he was about to pass out.

“That makes girls grow huge fucking tits? I’m Myra.” Myra glanced behind him. “So... why are you here, exactly?”

It took Ken a moment. The weirdness of the situation was nagging at him -- but there was also a persistent drumbeat of A MAN SHOULD that was hard to push through.

It took awhile to locate the memory. Right. After the gym visit he’d gone back to the Bakery because -- he’d really wanted more. More of those awful, bad, wonderful, delicious baked goods. He’d gotten a trial batch of Cupboard Muffins, which were made out of stuff from the very back of innumerable town pantries. A half-dozen of them. They’d tasted predominantly of spices from the 1990s.

And then Morgan with the huge tits had asked him a favor...

“Oh. Right,” Ken said. “Seeds. I’m supposed to... seed you. Give you seeds.”

“So you ARE with the pods!” Myra snapped. She took a step forwards, which revealed she had at least an inch on Ken. Ken was five foot four, even when he didn’t want to be. “Listen! Stop asking me! I’m not a fucking farmer! Or a-- farmer who fucks! I refuse delivery!”

A MAN SHOULD -- what? Ken was dizzy with it. Very dizzy What should a man do, in this scenario?

To his total horror he realized he was actually unsteady, and swaying around. He hadn’t slept in two days, and all his meals had been lusciously inedible. Plus there was the new whorl of masculine imperative in his head, mixing uneasily with an old version of the same. And what had been put in him. All that rage. No, that wasn’t new. it was already there....

He fell.

Myra had to catch him.

She had caught him and was holding him up.

This was definitely not what a man should do. Men supported, he thought, and it was at least nice to have that crystal clear in his head. That made two things he was sure of: men should support, and men should noisily fuck girls into wimpering pleased rag dolls.

“Alright, come in,” Myra said, softening. “More people should enjoy the house, before the bank takes it.”

“Thanks,” Ken said, and passed out.

---

“Aud, can I send you down to the new bakery?” Mom said. “It’s... oh. It’s so good.”

Aud. “Aud” was the result of a long war. In retrospect Audrey should’ve gone with the name she’d really wanted, and not opened negotiations with a concession. The birth cert name was Austin. And yet she could’ve lived with Audrey, only for Mom to drop the -rey without discussion. That left the -d, with -st always in the air, threatening.

Mom seemed a bit... out of it? She wore a pair of tights that Audrey didn’t recall her having, and looked out the window, toying with her hair. That was another fight-- Audrey had to keep hers a titch shorter.

“Well, fine?” Audrey said. “For what? Just--- whatever?”

“Oh yes. Whatever,” Mom said, nodding. Her eyes were dreamy. Whatever, this was preferable to Conversational Battle Mother. “Whatever is good. REALLY good. Catherine down the--- down the street---”

Mom trailed off, and absently sucked on the tips of her fingers.

So Audrey went out. She pretty much always gave in, which was why she wasn’t named what she really wanted, which was Gwendolyn.

---

“Dad died, then Mom died, and you would not believe how many mortgages were on this bad boy,” Myra slapped the table. “Drink your tea. It’s probably got a lien on it.”

He’d woken up on her couch, and felt mildly more with it. Ken massaged his forehead. When he closed his eyes, it was still to a cacophony of lights and images and swirls. It was hard to think clearly, or at all, through the pounding imperative. A MAN... enough. But it wasn’t going away. He had to do something about it. Something manly.

“Sorry--” Ken mumbled, and then winced. “Bad headache. You know they’re baking with ground up potato chips as flour.”

“Yes, I do know, because I went to see my friend Evie, and she’s this giggling hair-twirling bimbo dumbo now,” Myra said. “The only good news is she left her disgusting violent boyfriend and is now, according to her, getting the world’s biggest and most amazing dick. Also, she’s grown an ass that goes out to HERE. Something is WRONG with this town. And when I went to check it out, they ignored all my very good questions about why everyone was a jacked-up horny bunny, and asked me to start farming! I am not a farmer! My parents did that.”

Ken took a look around the surroundings. It was a shrine to corn-- cartoon corn, porcelain stalks of corn, there was even a cross-stitched row of corn stalks above the mantlepiece.

“Uh. They into... corn?” Ken said.

“Yeah, we grew corn. Lots and lots of corn,” Myra said. She sipped her tea, pensive. “Cheap corn we could barely sell at cost. My parents were actually hippies, if the old pictures are true. They spent a year backpacking India. Then they inherited this place and transformed instantly into overall-wearers. Dad grew this big beard, Mom started quilting. Like, aggressively quilting.”

A MAN SHOULD... problem-solve. Of course. He was commiserating, instead of fixing her problems, with or without her involvement. Ken stood up, abruptly. He only wobbled a little. “Maybe you SHOULD farm,” he said, and felt a warm, pleased glow. He was telling a girl what to do. “You’re a farmer’s daughter, right? Seems alright. And now you’ve got the seeds.”

“I got the pink hair so I didn’t have to farm,” Myra said. She fluffed it out at him. “I told my parents, ahhm out--- I’m out on the Homestead Act scene. I’m going to sit in an office with air conditioning. Do you... LIKE the Corn Home. Can you imagine living in this?”

Ken didn’t have a home. He was pretty sure if he even showed up in his home town, he’d get shot. His Dad had three brothers, and they were all armed and angry. “It’s an alright theme,” he said. “Maybe a little corn-heavy.” He looked over at the plump, plush couch. Corn-shaped pillows.

“And besides,” Myra said, eventually. “I’d just end up delivering bushels of corn to the bank window. All the liens.”

“FUCK the bank,” Ken said automatically and this also led to a-- yes. It was a masculine glow. He’d felt it before, a bronze, even gold glow in his heart, when something purely male happened. His first baseball game, chanting about how the other team sucked. His first shave. Nonchalantly assuming he knew the answer to a difficult financial situation gave that same happy glow.

A MAN SHOULD. He was getting somewhere. Right?

He shook his head. The first step to being a guy was to at least talk like a regular person. “You know,” he said. “they’re basically out of food, in this town. I brought in a bunch of potatoes, but you can only be involuntarily Irish for so long. And they seem really nice to be... I mean... what?”

“Sex-obsessed parodies of people?” Myra said.

“You could take the seeds? Think about it?” he said, and berated himself. He should’ve phrased it as an imperative.

“Absolutely fucking not!” Myra said.

“Alright, alright,,” Ken said. He swallowed. “Can I at least drop the seeds off here?” No. “Listen, I gotta drop these seeds here.” No! “Myra, you’re taking the seeds. This is where seeds go. Farm. Look around. Corn seeds belong here. It’s a shrine to them.”

The capital letters hesitated, and relented. Acceptable.

“Oh-- for---” Myra rolled her eyes at hm. “Fine. I will take possession of the seeds. I am NOT going to PLANT them. I don’t want forty acres of corn stalks with big boobs. And dicks underneath the cornsilk. Although it would be fun to give to the bank. Also this is not at all the season for planting and the irrigation system is a dang-all mess.”

A little bit of nasal crept in from time to time, out of Myra. There were exactly two freckles on the bridge of Myra’s nose. The farm girl peeked out from behind the college co-ed. Ken decided he liked it.

---

There was a very long line. Audrey couldn’t recall what the building had been. Maybe a Mexican chain? A Raising Cane’s? Whatever it had been, it had salted the earth of its prior branding, and no trace of it remained.

The line was very cheerful. Lots of her Mom’s friends, and, unusually, their grim husbands. They were comparing favorite flavors, in very loud voices. And how each flavor made them feel. “The blueberry! Or--- I guess it was pinkberry? It tasted like-- well, I’ll tell you girls, I wanted more in my mouth.” that was Ms. Lundgren, who usually walked silently by Audrey on the street in a way that felt transphobic. Something in the sniffy stride.

“And she got it,” Mr. Lundgren said.

Ms. Lundgren giggled. Audrey caught her eye, horrified. Were they joking about--- blowjobs? But Ms. Lundgren just gave her a casual, even dippy smile.

“Hiiiii Audrey!” she said. Was she drunk? She seemed to waver, her eyes warm and soft. “Your skin!”

Her--- what? “My skin?” Audrey said, cautious.

“It’s looking soooo good! It must be the stuff you take? Good for you!”

Was Ms. Lundgren chewing something? “I really love your skin!” she repeated.

---

He loaded two big boxes of kernels onto the farm’s old handtruck. Ordinarily he stopped at two. But... A MAN SHOULD do three, right? That would mean a single trip. And would tax his muscles. Overloaded and warm muscles were another source of happy glow. Ken was feeling a little more with-it, at least. Capable of thoughts.

“That’s too many,” Myra said, watching him approach over rough ground. “That’s--- I don’t-- there’s a pothole on the driveway.”

“I’ve got it,” Ken called out. For a moment everything was right. He’d talked a girl into something she didn’t really want to do. His muscles were burning. He was delivering sustenance, in the form of seeds for the harvest. He was making poor decisions based on an inflated sense of his own strength. The imprinted commands tattooed on his brainstem combined with the fierce joy of passing, and---

The wheel hit the pothole. Three boxes of corn seed spilled across the driveway.

He didn’t have a dick and he couldn’t even haul corn, which was his actual job. He had never felt more five foot four.

Myra reached for a cigarette she must’ve smoked, long ago, and no longer had. She reached down and picked up a handful of spilled seed.

“Why does it feel-- greasy?” she said, and wiped her hand on her pants. “And why does it smell like that? Smells... good.”

“I’ll get it,” Ken said. He picked up a seed. They were oddly oily. He flipped a seed into the bin. Just twenty-five million to go. “I fucked it.”

Myra put a hand up. “It’s okay. I’ve got a big dustpan thing for situations just like this. It’s Dad’s fault for having a hazard driveway. You’re trying to help, I get it. I think that’s how the pod people get everyone. They’re nice at you, you smile back, and suddenly you’ve got big honkers. Or a huge dick, for you.”

“I wish,” Ken said. “No dick. Injected beard stubble.”

Why had he told her? Maybe to see if she’d known, all along. In the event, she didn’t seem to react. Myra’s attention was still on the seeds in her hand. They caught the sun, and Ken could see just how oily they were. They’d coated her hand with it.

“Uh? Yeah? Ummmm. I’ll be back. Aaa-hm grabbing the bin. Thanks again. Usually I only get judicial summons delivered.”

Myra popped a corn kernel into her mouth, absently. He had noticed her accent wearing through. It was adorable.

Something about it brought the warm glow back to his nub. Or maybe it was watching her ass swivel on her way to the garage. She had to nearly dance it to avoid the potholes.

No, that wasn’t it, Ken realized. Something very manly had just occurred. He’d almost missed it, but the capital letters hadn’t. They’d known.

He’d been placated. She’d placated him after he fucked up. She’d soothed him and mollified him after he’d blown a task. She’d treated him like a man. She’d covered for his stupid masculine mistake.

He was back in business.

---

They’d piled her high with pastries that Audrey didn’t quite recognize. Almost croissants and partial danishes, their shapes unconstrained by conventional baking. They were extra curvy and overstuffed. And good as hell -- Audrey had stuffed her face with a dozen.

All pink. The boob fairy girl behind the counter hadn’t hesitated, and the register girl had called her Honey-boo-baby. And hadn’t charged her a nickel. Plus her Mom had been so distracted, and happy, by the arrival of sweet stuffed creamy puffy-puffs they’d barely talked.

Audrey hesitated, then locked the door. She was tingling all over. She stripped to her underpants. Audrey wore boxers, albeit purple and lime green ones. Off they went, and on went her panties. They had a tiny white decorative bow on the front, and were as pink as Amazon had promised.

Her nipples were puffy and warm. She checked herself in the mirror. Gwendolyn looked back at her, smiling her brainless Gwendolyn smile.

---

“Delivery,” Ken said. “Secret delivery.”

He rapped on the door. They were outside of Ruhk proper, in an old development of shoddy cottages. Ancient ones, and not well-kept, the paint peeling wherever it felt like. Ken had grown up in a number of sick homes, where the walls wept moisture and the tiles were cheap. They were grim places. Even now, he could distinguish different types of mold, by scent.

“Password?” a voice said.

Myra leaned in. “Math,” she said, solemnly. She wore baggy blue jeans and a loose red and white checkerboard blouse. It was a fairly agricultural outfit for a girl that had escaped to the city, and Ken found himself reviewing it, during the drive over.

Were there a few more freckles on Myra’s nose?

The door swung open. Slowly, and painfully. Either the floor was lumpy, or the door was, or both. The girl on the other side had sharp dark eyes and wore hoop earrings. She was dressed in dark clothes, but a lot of them, a busy assembly of leather and nylons that was nearly goth. Overall it was witchy, but mall witch. “You’re Myra?” the girl said. “What’s six times eight?”

“Forty-eight!” Myra said. “And this is Ken. He’s... caught up. In this.”

“I’m involved,” Ken said. “Forty-eight.”

He’d slept for nearly forty-eight hours, to boot. When he’d woken up Myra had announced they were going to a meeting of the remaining non-pod-people in town.

She’d also made him breakfast. It was a corn-based porridge.

Ken still wasn’t completely sure why he was sticking around, even after learning about the ongoing conspiracy to sexify the town. He was fuzzily aware of going through some sort of... experience. A MAN SHOULD. It didn’t seem to leave him alone, although at least it wasn’t a flashing strobe, turning every other thought into a masculine panic. But it was still... there. Strongly.

It felt good to do what A MAN SHOULD do. Really good.

Definitely there was a lot of gender going around in Ruhk. He and Myra had gone for an early trip into town and seen the men and women waiting at the bakery. The men had stood so very straight. Shoulders all squared off, like male dominos. The girls, meanwhile, were draped or leaned or otherwise all over the boys. Pushing soft curves into them. A MAN SHOULD... stand up straight. That, at least, was an easy one.

“I’m Misty,” the girl hissed, mysteriously. “Come in. Welcome to the Resistance.”

“We brought contraband,” Myra said, holding up the bag. She said it as conspiratorially as possible, but they were just biscuits. They smelled great. Biscuits coaxed out of who-knew-what kind of greyish flour by the hardworking, sweaty baker sluts behind the counter. “Blue and pink, like everything else they make.”

“Great. Yeah. Every fucking thing is blue and pink. Come in, come in,” Misty said.

There were a half-dozen town residents in a semi-circle. “Everyone, this is Myra, you know her parents, they have the corn farm on the west end. And this is...”

“Ken,” Ken said. Not a hint of “are-you-sure?” came back from Misty, which was good.

That was the other good thing about staying in town -- it was an important source of magic masculinizing baked goods.

Ken had grown two inches taller. His feet were bigger. A lot bigger - he’d had to borrow the old boots of Myra’s Dad. They had the first fringe of dark black hair on them, too. The face in the mirror had lost the persistent chubby cheeks, sprite-like and prone to blushing, that Ken had hated so badly. Now they were just cheeks.

He’d woken up. He’d felt stronger. He’d been bigger. There was a strong growth of fuzz on his cheeks, his chin.

A chin with more heft, more jut. And then he’d taken his taller frame, his rising sense of gravity, his wild hopes, to the bathroom, he’d peeked down his too-tight pants, and seen the same fucking slit he’d been fucking born with.

---

“Hey guys,” Audrey said, “get back to the flag, okay?”

She’d just said it, without thinking. And without all the painful vocal gyrations, the mock giggle at the end, the painstaking lilt. It wasn’t bad, was it? Audrey felt a soft, warm glow, starting with her stomach, which was still chock-ful of pastries.

“Yeah bro,” a guy responded, over voice.

The feeling went away.

She reached for another pastry.

---

Anger flowed freely through him, flooding into his chest, arching his fingers and filling his arms. He should’ve been happy about the physical changes. And not upset at their limitations.

A MAN SHOULD rage at what held him back...

The Resistance sat on dumpy chairs with questionable stains. Ken cast a brief eye on them. All girls, which was good. It meant all the blue biscuits were his.

All the girls were obviously in the early throes of turning into the same dumb sluts as all the other women in town. Two had a college look about them, sat close together, and had their hands in each other’s laps. They were involved in a very intricate series of pets and strokes and touches that touched everything but each other’s pussies. A third girl was ramrod straight and sweating, and so clearly had something up her ass that Ken’s fingers itched to find out what it was. Misty, the host, wore just too many sexy clothes to be credibly unaffected.

And then Myra, who kept guiltily sucking on corn nubs, and was struggling to maintain her cool, mid-atlantic accent. It kept turning farm-ified. Was her hair getting more curly? Were her hips swaying as she walked, just a bit more? Ken had pretended not to see her hitting up the pink biscuits at the bakery. They were probably swelling her tits even then. So why couldn’t he....

Ken tried to stuff it all somewhere deep. But men just weren’t that deep. The capital letters weren’t helping. They were loud.

“Alright,” Misty said. She sat in a folding chair, and then very visibly had to struggle to cross her legs. They didn’t want to do it. “I’ve brought a guest. My very infected, very slutty, and very stupid sister, who is now one of the biggest bimbos in Ruhk. And before she comes out, know that this was a girl that got furious when the Nobel Prize for Literature fucked up the selection. Morgan, bounce your slutty butt out here.”

A full-figured bimbo pranced out of the backroom. “It’s me! A big slut!” she said, proudly. The other girls murmured and looked at each other. They seemed relieved -- they weren’t big-assed sluts like THIS. Not yet. Although Ken could see that their cardigans were tight at the buttons, and their skin had all cleared up nicely.

Morgan waved at him. Ken waved back. Right. He’d seen this girl getting stuffed with cock.

“Thank you, sister-slut,” Misty said. “Alright. Skirt off, bimbo.”

Morgan cheerfully doffed it. It was an A-line skirt with poodle overtones. She wore a tanktop with RUHK AKERY crudely stenciled on the tits. It looked like the sequins for the B had gotten popped off by her titties. “No hesitation at all, huh, slut butt?”

Myra sat forward, rapt. She cracked the corn between her teeth, which startled her, but she slowly went back to chewing. Ken watched it. For whatever reason he didn’t have the vagueness, the ‘oh, look at that, my titties are super-big’ confusion. But it seemed preferable.

“The physical elements are what’s so interesting. Look at my sister’s pussy,” Misty instructed. The girls all leaned forwards. Ken leaned back.

It was infuriating. Vexing at a level he couldn’t control. A MAN SHOULD be irritated, at the cosmic unfairness of not having a cock. At the laughable irony of stumbling into magical boy juice, and still waking up with the same unwanted slit. A MAN SHOULD rage at it, want to scream fury, punch through wall after wall.

“Look at how WET she is, more or less constantly. Constantly? Right? Slut?” Misty said.

“Oh, yeah! Always good to go! And you can see how puffy and aroused my lips are!” Morgan said, giggling. “They’re much bigger. Clit, too! Can I touch it, sis?”

“No you may NOT,” Misty said. “Christ. You are such a whore, now.”

“Yep!”

Ken rummaged in the bag and pulled out the man-ified baked goods. They were streaked with green along with the blue tinge.

“The comical breast growth is one thing, the physical arousal is another, but the vag--- vagin--- the pussy changes are very noteworthy to me. Like, if you touch her clit, she squirts,” Misty said. “Like, really far. Point being-- Morgan, you dummy, you didn’t need to-- alright. God. Good thing we’re squatting in this house, you dog. That carpet couldn’t get any worse.”

The biscuits weren’t bad, and crackled with the now-familiar blue sprinkles embedded in them. But they were-- stretched, even Ken could tell. His taste buds had been built on stretch, on substitutions. Crushed saltines instead of breadcrumbs, soy sauce for broth, mayo to cover up any number of sins. The town really did need a reliable source of grain. The image flickered through him-- A MAN SHOULD walk through amber fields, overalls hanging off his expansive chest, forty acres bursting with fertility...

Ken shook his head, banishing it. He wasn’t planting any seeds.

It didn’t help that he was unrelentingly horny, his nerves tingling between his legs, even walking an unbearable source of friction.

“It’s the water supply,” Myra offered. “Has to be. The banks want us horny and dull, working long hours to pay off loans. We’re all drugged to keep us quiet.” This didn’t stop her from enjoying a tall glass of water that she’d poured herself. In fact after she talked she nearly chugged it, eagerly. “The baked goods have water in them. Probably. They’re just like, the tip of the iceberg.” The mention of icebergs must’ve made her thirsty, as she went to the kitchen for more water. She chugged that one, too.

“Then why are WE unaffected, in our pussy regions?” Said one of the co-eds, with a voice so purring it could’ve had kittens. “We’re staying hydrated. See, it HAS to be hypnosis. TV. Screens. They’re making us into sex kittens. Making us soooo hornyyyyyy...” she giggled, and flipped her hair back. Her friend was squirming, trying to avoid the fingers in her lap.

“Actually,” Morgan offered, still buck naked. “Misty, you were there, we found this box full of STUFF and---”

“Quiet, bimbo,” her sister snapped. “MY research says, food supply. Obviously so! We have the pink and blue proof! And we all know who would love a town of compliant sluts. Abilgaard. They own this town, they want to own the people!”

“Misty, it was the box we found, it’s down at the bakery, you were touching yourself just like---”

“I will SPANK you, sis,” Misty said, sternly. “IF you do not keep your big puffy lips SHUT!”

Morgan zipped her slutty, pouty lips.

Ken got up. A MAN SHOULD... A MAN SHOULD... it should’ve been exhausting, playing around in his head. All the energy had nowhere to go, just cycle around and around, curdling inside of him. In the bathroom he begrudgingly sat down to pee. His thighs looked powerful, clenched with heavy muscle.

The seat snapped, beneath his new weight.

“God fucking damn it,” Ken said. Hissed out his frustration. “Grow, damn you!” Three, four inches, it would be enough. A MAN SHOULD reduce girls to tired, gasping wrecks of quivering orgasm. He wanted to. “GROW!”

It didn’t.

He went into the garage while the girls debated causes, mechanisms, motives, means. There was a toolbox there. A half-dozen spiders, each a different variety, crawled out of it. He hefted it easily. A MAN SHOULD fix things. This, he could work with. While the ladies gabbed.

---

She woke up the next morning with a strange taste in her mouth. It took her a moment, sorting through a jumble of identities. For a half-second she was the first one, still lurking in family photos her Mom kept around the house. The one that played baseball out of obligation for six terrible years.

And then she was the other one, because she was still in pink panties, still feeling the warm, happy glow from last night. She’d masturbated, all night. And not with any mixed feelings about sexual tools. Fondling herself, whatever felt good, and it all felt good and all-body glowing, like it was supposed to. An orgasm that turned her brain off, the one she’d always sought, so much so she’d treated herself to another half-dozen. And that was another girl specialty, cum after cum.

Gwendolyn had cummed her brains out with sticky pastry fingers.

Another shake, and Audrey emerged, caught in the middle. Wondering at the fatty tits that had apparently sprung in, overnight.

---

Two hours later he’d repaired the washing machine and the dryer, and was well on his way to fixing the dishwasher. Bolts that had been loosened over decades of vibration, cracked hoses he’d swapped out with a length of tubing. Filters clogged with the essentials of the 80s and 90s. He’d taken his shirt off, leaving only his binder. It was feeling extra taut around his shoulders. His breasts were smaller, but his shoulders were bigger. A MAN SHOULD repair things. A MAN SHOULD work. It was... nothing was calming, exactly, but it was close.

“Ooh, working man!” a sunny female voice said. Ken looked up from deep in the innards of the last pre-electronic washing machine in the state. He stared right into the pretty pink pussy of Morgan, who gave him a very winning smile.

He swallowed. Hard physical labor had felt -- good. And it had distracted him from the increasing amount of cooing and giggles going on from the living room.

He glanced in from time to time. The gals had lost sight of their original purpose as a resistance group, and were gossiping about the hot boys to be found downtown. Their eyes had gotten round and vague, if not completely vacant. Myra was chewing on one of the pink biscuits, working it around the omnipresent corn kernel.

“Hello again, Miss,” he said.

“It’s Morgan!” Morgan said. She hopped onto the kitchen countertop, and kicked her legs back and forth. “And YOU are Ken! You are very sweaty, Ken. And you’re fixing things. Those are two very sexy things, Ken, and we haven’t even talked about your butt.”

“Miss, I can see your clit,” Ken said, sitting up. He gave the bimbo a warning look. “It’s undignified.”

“It’s okay, it likes attention,” Morgan said. She put her hand between her legs, just to swirl the wetness around. “You’re super good with tools, Mister Ken.”

“Where I’m from, it’s either you fix things, or they don’t get fixed,” Ken said. “Aren’t you supposed to be busy turning all those girls into sluts like you? I thought that was the plan with the bakery.”

“Oh, that’s not MY problem. It just...” Morgan made a vague motion with her hand. “...happens. We opened the bakery to feed people! They’re so hungry in this town! And they’re having SO much fun sneaking around town and stuff, while their little boobs get nice and big. And YOU are getting so nice and muscle-ey!”

He had to ask. A MAN SHOULD be direct.

“You think there’s any chance I’m going to wake up with a cock?” he said. “If I keep it up with all your drugs?”

Morgan stopped what she was doing, which was rubbing her clitoris with both hands. This had become a more serious conversation, so she put one hand on the counter, and the other went up to rub at her titties. They were still constrained underneath a shirt. One of the co-ed’s shirts, Ken noticed.

“I think you have plenty of tools right now!” she said, eventually, softly. “You wanna try sticking them inside of me? I bet you can fix me!”

Let down gently by a stupid bimbo. It wasn’t fair to her, how mad the answer made him. It was a good answer. Ken took a few deep breaths.

“All I have is this screwdriver, and it is filthy,” Ken said. Damn it. Part of him had been still holding out hope. One more blue sprinkle. He clenched his fists together. They were much stronger, and they were much hairier. And yet he couldn’t even ask it to be enough. No, it wasn’t enough. It was just not enough, it was not.

The hairs on the back of his fist stood straight up.

“Oooh!” Morgan said, examining the Philips Head. “Oooooh yes please! Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey! You should probably turn it right, I’m awfully loose!” Morgan stuck her thick thighs apart. He could smell her, even over the scent of forty years of dish detergent.

Ken snorted. “Yeah? And then this wrench?”

“Oooooh!”

“And then this plunger is, what, two feet long?”

“OOOOOoooooooh,” Morgan said. She was panting. She tilted her hips back. It WAS tantalizing. He was the plumber, after all. She was the slutty housewife, dripping and desperate, with two tits that needed to be mashed together and sucked on. Get his sweat all over her, grip her meaty ass with grimey palms, and---then---

Then what?

Ken grimaced. He ran his hands over his face. His face was scratchy and needed a shave. Burly, harsh bristles there. His hands smelled like oils and metal tools.

He wanted, badly, to throw the screwdriver. It would fly end over end over end, and bury itself into the drywall, inches deep. He was getting stronger. It would be good for the screwdriver, getting to penetrate things. Had to be nice.

“I appreciate the mega-testosterone pastries,” Ken gritted out. It wasn’t--- A MAN SHOULD not take it out on a girl. A lesson his Dad had never appreciated. The ultimate irony. He’d looked for the man inside himself, and found his fucking father. “You can shove this hammer up your cunny, actually. The wooden end. It’s pretty slick. That came out-- not like I intended.” Deep. Breath. “I really do think you’d enjoy it.”

He stood up and turned away from the most inviting pussy of his life. But so what? A MAN SHOULD leave her writhing on the ground, and all he could do was fix her tubing and clean out her valves. “Myra! Get your-- what the fuck are you doing, Myra? Getting all tarted up?”

Myra was sitting in the lap of Morgan’s sister, tittering up a storm. The two were sharing a biscuit, taking little nibbles out of it. Their lips were getting closer and closer.

“Come ON, girl. Before you start giving milk.”

“Oooooh?” Myra said, dazed, but A MAN SHOULD pick her up, get her dazed rear end moving in the correct direction. Ken kept his face completely stone. He did not slam the door on the way out. Growing up they’d kept a stock of hinges in the garage.

---

Audrey walked to the Ruhk library, and smiled at people.

She couldn’t help it. She felt-- good. So good. It was something in her bloodstream, and possibly fungal or viral. Her Mom had caught it too. She’d called her Audrey-honey.

“Is your hair longer?” Mom had said. They met each other’s eyes, daring the other to say something. Mom was wearing a leather vest with half her chest showing.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Audrey had said. It felt even more crazy to say-- yeah Mom it grew about three inches last night. And I’m catching up to you in the tit department. Or perhaps not -- Mom’s boobs were on big display, and defied time and gravity.

“Looks good,” Mom had concluded, and smiled, and so had everyone else. Audrey smiled too. She’d kept her eyes down for a long time. No one in Ruhk liked the t-girl smiling at them, there was a risk of woke transmission. But they were smiling too, and girls smiled. They smiled all the time, big happy frowsy stupid smiles that lit up the world. There were poems and songs about it. The residents smiled back, and waved. They were all headed to town. For more baked goods.

Her tummy rumbled. Below that, her pink panties were soaked through, but she wore them anyway.

---

“Delivery?” Ken said.

Apparently the building had been an abandoned Pizza Hut for nearly fifteen years. Not so much a victim of recent economic decline, more a victim of the vicious midwestern pizza wars of the previous decades. According to Myra, Little Caesars had been the winner, only to fall prey to Papa John’s shortly afterwards. Which was itself nearly out of business. And now it was the Ruhk Freeeeeee Medical CLINIC!

Or, per Myra, a possible center of the recent hormonal surges in town. This was part delivery, mostly investigation.

Myra stood right behind him. She was still chewing on corn seeds. Did she even realize how much bigger her tits had gotten?

Ken hadn’t said anything about that. But he had mentioned the seeds to her a few times -- hey. Myra. You’re still chewing on the corn kernels. He’d even said, you know they’re drugged up. She invariably spit them out, looked embarrassed, and then was chewing another one within a half-hour. He’d given up. And her new tits were looking pretty good, pretty full.

The overalls were pretty cute. They were cuffed well above the knee, and she wore a tight jersey top underneath it.

A girl with startlingly big boobs appeared at the door. She wore the most sexual scrubs that Ken could possibly imagine. Like she was wearing crepe paper, just wrapped around parts of her, and not even all the naughty parts. What there was, was bright pink. She wore a NURSE TAMI! nametag, possibly to remind herself.

“Delivery?” she said, confused. She wore makeup like other people wore diamonds. A proud amount of makeup. “Of... what?”

“Bandaids, iodine, all sorts of things,” Ken said. This was true. Myra’s house had held an infirmary’s worth of medicine. A farmer’s wife thing, Myra had said. Husbands who worked with threshers and rotors and so on tended to come home with missing fingers. They had an entire truck’s worth to donate. “For the clinic.”

“And HE wanted to get himself a checkup,” Myra broke in.

Ken had deliberated with himself about participating in Myra’s doomed investigation. He’d slept over at Myra’s house again, and, again, woke up bigger, this time too big for the couch. He was beefy. He was strong. He’d gone through her pantry and found a forgotten cache of cashews from who knew which decade. He’d eaten every last one.

Myra was pretty sure that Ken was both sucked in to the “whole... sexy.. stud... thing in town”, and also partially unaffected to the bit where the stud was interested only in fucking and sucking. “Not to JUDGE or anything,” she’d said, running an appreciative hand on his chest, “but it all runs on old-school gender norms and-- like, don’t take this the wrong way, I did go to college -- ultimately you’ve got a vagina, you know? I bet it’s confused, with you. You’ve got natural immunity or sumthin!”

Her accent was all over the place. Ken wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was it southern? Midwestern? Both?

Myra had said a lot of things. Ultimately Ken had just let it wash over him, and felt the warm glow for doing that. She was right that he now seemed to be considerably smarter than the babbling farm girl at his side. Nodding, absently, while a girl talked, that was definitely manly. Not really listening. And now he was getting a medical checkup so she could, quote, “poke myself around”.

A MAN SHOULD put his arm around a girl. But casually. That was the key to it. Ken stretched his arm out and settled it on Myra’s waist. He could feel her tense, then clear her throat, and finally settle into it. He had his hand around her.

Now he just needed to deep-dick her into a sweaty, gasping submission. Somehow.

The plan from Misty and the others was to figure out if the clinic was part of it -- injecting fertility drugs into patients, anything like that. Giving illicit boob jobs.

“Oooooh, new patients!” the Doctor said, shouldering the nurse aside. The voice was practically panting.

It was the quickest that Ken had ever been seen for an appointment -- literally at the door. And usually his Doctor wasn’t visibly lusty. Myra took a step back, and Ken let his arm fall away. “Dr. GAURI?” Myra said, shocked.

The medical professional cocked a hip. It was clear that without her lab coat she’d blind them all. Her dress was short, skimpy, and very shiny. It looked like electric blue tape, wound around and around her. She did look very healthy. Especially her breasts, which pressed way out, even bigger than Nurse Tami’s very sizable set. They were so large that her stethoscope had major trouble dangling over the top of them. Just the tip managed it.

“He needs a checkup while I---” Myra cracked a kernel between her teeth, “poke around a lil’ bit, m’kay? Investigating you guys and stuff? About all the titties?”

She rubbed at the bridge of her nose. There were a solid dozen freckles there, now. And her hair had a new golden luster to it, whenever it caught the light.

“Oh, SURE!” Dr. Gauri gushed. “Nurse Tami, please see to the supplies! I will personally make sure our patient here is super-duper healthy!”

She took him by the hand, and drew him in. Ken had to duck under the doorframe.

The Clinic was busy. Busty girl nurses and buff boy nurses were equally involved in making sure patients were at their best. Ken watched as a set of twins in matching white miniskirts jumped up and down, gleeful, as their male patient did jumping jacks. “Ten for you, then ten for us!” one of the blondes called out. The patient, who was in his seventies, redoubled his efforts. His eyes examined what seemed to be a shelf of tits.

The lighting was very low, especially for a medical office, in part because the lampshades all had stained glass PIZZA HUT iconography on them. Doctor Gauri ushered him into what had once been Ruhk’s third-busiest pizza kitchen. There were still stainless steel tables, and she pushed him onto one, cheeks very rosy.

She was humming.

“SO. How long have you been a very attractive man?” she purred.

This was a tricky question, Ken felt. His head pounded, already. What was the manly thing to do, when your doctor was roughly transformed into a tart? She was all tits and obviously no brains. What if she tried to give him a shot? What would be in it, pink lemonade?

But she might do jumping jacks, his manly-man side reminded him.

Ken settled for honesty. “Four years,” he reported. “ever since I started on T.”

“Ohhhhh. Ohhhh!” Dr. Gauri’s substantial brows knit together, fractionally. Always nice to pass, Ken reminded himself. “Well! Okay! Are there any medical issues I can help you with? Fair warning, I’m not super great at like, surgery, anymore. Or like, pills, they all have super long names! Like aceta...min...fanny-fin!”

“I mean...” Ken looked at the big-boobed doctor flouncing in front of him, tits barely held back under her dress. What COULD he do? He was starting to get worked up again. Was this just his default setting, in social situations? Was it really what A MAN SHOULD do in any interaction? He tried to push it down. “Um. Is there... something going on in this town?”

“Oh, TOTALLY!” Dr. Gauri gushed. “It’s super fun if you want to investigate it while getting all horny and silly. I recommend it. Basically Morgan found some pills and powders and sprinkles and so on and so forth that are getting everyone really horny. And hot. And we spread it even further with like, drugged pussy juice. You wanna see?”

“Oh,” Ken said. “No. Lets... keep it professional.” Alright, investigation concluded. Now what?

He had a giggling horned-up slut practically in his lap, he NEEDED to DO something ABOUT that.

The capital letters were back.

“Hmmmm,” Dr. Gauri leaned in, thoughtfully, and sniffed him, very audibly. Then she picked up his arm and sniffed under an armpit, wiggled her nose, and tried the other one.

“Are you SURE you don’t have a nice big cock?” she ventured.

It’s okay to get angry at that stupid question, the capital letters told him. He’d seen it many times, going from zero to sixty, leaning forward over the dinner table. A MAN SHOULD. No. As he got bigger he got more furious? It could not be like that. One of the things he’d learned early on was, just smile sadly at the stupid questions, and save the fury for the group chat. “Very sure,” Ken said. “Very, very, very sure.”

“That’s funny. I’m smelling big, big dick. Smells... smells gooooood,” Dr. Gauri said. Her smile, on the second sniff, had gotten longer and glassy. “You’re super sure? Maybe you forgot?”

This fucking bimbo, Ken thought. The irritation added a note, and became simmering annoyance. It was far from his first time answering stupid questions by a doctor. “No adam’s apple,” Ken said, pointing at his throat. “Oh. Wait.” He poked. Yeah, there it was. When had that happened? And yet. “No, I don’t have a cock. I think I’d remember that. I recently, checked. I check all the time. And I still have breasts.” A little. Why didn’t these things provoke the sharp joy they should’ve? He’d been saving up for top surgery, and now they were deflating, fast, on their own.

Why was he so, so, furious? Was this really what A MAN SHOULD?

“Okay, but everyone has breasts!” Dr. Gauri said. She jiggled up and down, and then decided to completely go for it. Jumping jacks, five of them. Her colossal, impossible titties swung out on the first bounce, and wobbled in Ken’s face. “I bet you don’t have titties like THIS! Here, you can touch them!”

She nearly shoved them in Ken’s face.

Ken growled, equal parts aggravated and aroused.

ROUGHLY MAUL THEM, the instructions told him. The capital letters, the everything. Show a TOTAL lack of CONCERN for HER sexual pleasure. Just grab her big tits and squeeze, that’s what they were for. The strangeness of the situation, the oddity of being assessed for male-nicity, took a backseat. He put his hands on them, and let his frustration do the squeezing. Myra better be finding out the things he’d already learned, Ken thought. The silly farm girl. WIth the freckles and warbling farm girl voice. And the increasingly big tits...

“Ohhhh your hands are so SOFT!” Dr. Gauri murmured.

“Oh-- for--- fuck’s---” Now he was just mad. A MAN SHOULD be angry, the instructions told him. Anger was the main weapon in the male arsenal. Anger was power and presence. A MAN SHOULD feel aggrieved, at being told his hands, that were supposed to be forcibly squeezing some funbags, were SOFT.

Ken snatched his hands away and put them under his butt. So soft. Sure. He grabbed hold of the anger, the awkwardness, and used it to shove past the insistent demands to put his mouth on her nipples, and suck. A MAN SHOULD SUCK ON TITTIES. It burned in him, but this, also, burned. He burned all over. “Okay! Yes. They’re soft. And I don’t have a cock, and I have to inject myself to grow the worst beard you’ve ever seen. Thanks for---”

“Oh! I have an idea!” Dr. Gauri said. She sounded genuinely startled to have had an original thought. “Oh. It’s gone. No, it’s back! Gone again. Quick, hold these while I think!”

She yanked on his arms, and put his hands back on her tits. That should have been HIS decision, Ken raged. Anger coursed through him, confusion, arousal. Ultimately A MAN SHOULD grab tits, soft hands or no. A MAN SHOULD give them a powerful squeeze. Ken gave it his best go. They were melting soft, perfect, wonderful breasts. Dr. Gauri let out a not very medical moan. His control was slipping. It was gone, it SHOULD be gone. A man’s self-control was nothing but a useful threat. It slipped, he wanted it to slip, he didn’t want it to slip...

“What’s your dumb-ass idea?” he told the bimbo.

“Ahhh! Ahhhh--- prostate! Yes! Maybe you have a prostate! I’ll check!”

She grinned at her own brilliance.

“Doctor-- lady,” Ken said. “LADY.” That did it. The anger was what A MAN SHOULD feel. A white-red fury overtook him. His clit was pounding with blood, his hands tingled from handling her soft stupid tits. Every reservation and civilized concern melted away. He felt primal, raw, and--- male. He felt very male. It was bad, and stupid, and male. He gave in to it.

The thing about toxic masculinity is that it was masculine.

“I don’t. No prostate. I keep telling you.” It was always manly to yell. “I don’t have a fucking PROSTATE you DUMB. FUCKING. BIMBO.” He’d heard this voice before, he’d sworn never to hear it again. And there it was, certainly male.

“But you SMELL like you’re gonna fuck me stupid! Er. Stupider,” Dr. Gauri said. She stamped her feet. Her big boobs wobbled in his hands. “Look, patient, I can tell you’re not super duper happy with your body. But in this office we focus on fuck-tionality!

She bent over at the waist, aided by her enormous, towering, five-inch heels. It looked like she’d put extra material under them, to give her even more height. The Doctor flipped up her lab coat, and her dress rode up an extra inch. She wasn’t wearing any undies. He had a perfect view of her puckered asshole, not to mention the beautiful rounds of her ass. “Doctor’s orders! Prostate check! It’s right up here!” she said. “You can check me, and then I’ll check you, and---”

For the first time Dr. Gauri clocked that her patient was unhappy. And steaming mad.

“Uhhh,” she said, cocking her head. “Everything okay, patient?”

“Get over my knee,” A MAN said.

“Um. Sorry?”

“Bend over my knees right now,” A MAN told her. “I’m going to spank you.”

A tiny bit of medical degree and doctor haughtiness climbed back into Dr. Gauri’s eyes. “I don’t know if that’s medically necessary?”

“NOW,” A MAN told her.

Dr. Gauri meekly complied. “Ten,” A MAN decided. “Keep talking and I’ll make it fifteen.”

It felt good and right, correcting her.

“It is not trans-positive,” SMACK, “Or anything other than embarrassing,” SMACK, “to go on and on about me not having a dick.” SMACK. “It is not hot or cute. Do you understand?” SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

“Yes, sir!” Dr. Gauri yelped. He’d at least alternated butt cheeks. And while it had stung, her body was really coming around on being paddled by a man. “You-- you really do smell like a---”

Another two swift strokes. “Unnnnngh! A man. You’re--- you’re a man!”

“I wish,” A MAN said. Two more. And... ten.

Ken breathed in the hot, female scent of a girl quivering and sweating over his knees. He’d never felt both more and less manly. Emasculated and humiliated, and also brimming with power. He was either enraged or cumming, he wasn’t sure. It was definitely all a type of masculinity. Only men could be so angry they were going to cum. “Do you still need to check my prostate?” He growled. He didn’t even need to pitch his voice. It came out like a grizzly bear.

“N-no!” Dr. Gauri mumble-moaned. “I’m sorry! I was-- I thought it might be hawt--- I know I violated my hippopotamus oath---”

“The prostate is up here, right?” He put a finger at her pucker. The effect on the doctor was immediate and very medicinal. She started to buck and snort, limbs shivering. Ken felt an answering spasm from his own pants. He resolved to ignore it. He rubbed his finger around. Dr. Gauri clenched around the digit. The remnants of her medical degree were having a hard time sticking around, with a finger up her butt.

“Sorry my fingers are so rough,” he told her.

When she stopped shaking and screeching, Ken withdrew his finger and let her slide off his lap.

The anger dropped away.

What the hell had he just done? Ken stood up, confused. He swayed again. It was all so much. A MAN SHOULD. Which man? Him? Hopefully not. He stumbled out, thighs sticky, leaving the doctor in a puddle of her own juices.

Myra was at the front door, chatting with Nurse Tami. Even deeply muddled, it didn’t escape Ken’s notice that she was wearing lipstick, now. And had a bag gripped tight in her fingers, full of sticks of half-used product. Or that she was sucking away on a corn seed.

“Everything okay?” she said, to him. “Learn anything?”

“I don’t want to discuss it,” Ken snapped. And tried to feel bad about it, but Myra’s gaze immediately snapped to the floor, and her shoulders slumped, and A MAN SHOULD get that kind of instant submission. No. Not him, not again.

“Myra,” he said, once they were outside, and he could suck in whatever calm there was in the air. “What kind of man do you like?”

“What kind of man?” Myra repeated. The blonde streaks had spread in her hair, even while she was in the clinic. Was her face wet? “Ahh don’t know. There’s...” she seemed to be thinking about it for the first time, and liking it. “There’s a LOT of men.”

“Big jerk?” Ken said. “Yells a lot?”

“A hard worker,” Myra said, and her voice was suddenly a ways away. “A hard... hard worker. Gotta.. gotta get the crops in. And I’ll have breakfast on the table, and then I’ll send him out nice and... and...”

She shook her head, sheepish, and glanced at him. He was getting awfully muscular.

“Nice and full,” she finished, lamely.

“Nice and full,” Ken echoed. Well. He wasn’t even nice.

---

There wasn’t anyone in the library at all. And that was very unusual, because Ruhk didn’t have a lot of readers, but it had a lot of people who badly needed public services. And a heated building. During tax season Audrey became Ruhk’s most sought-after accountant.

The usual sniffiness and eyerolls died out -- Audrey figured that Ruhk considered a public library to be a t-girl’s natural habitat, like finding a tiger in the jungle. They weren’t much wrong on that front.

She only made it an hour, fidgeting, trying not to touch her nipples, and lacing her hands together, before going to The Den.

Only she, and possibly the city manager, if they ever found one, had a key. It was the gayest place in Ruhk. A hoard of girl shit and plushies that she’d hunted during Milwaukee and Chicago expeditions. Even the lighting was pastel. Audrey made sure not to wear her boots inside, or her Carhartt. The den only allowed tights and lavender-colored sweaters past its portal.

And video games. Audrey cracked the door open, in case anyone needed a librarian, and fired up a game. Her body was throbbing all over, the controller vibrating.

Gwendolyn said into the mic, “good job, guys!’ and when the chat exploded with ‘girl’ and ‘girl alert’ it traced an electric current across her skin.

---

“Delivery,” Ken mumbled, checking his voice. It wasn’t a baritone, but it wasn’t far off. It could drive in the same car as Pavarotti. And yet.

Ken couldn’t sleep. He could feel himself changing.

He coursed with energy, with power, with a vast, simmering irritation. Everything he touched felt breakable. He felt like he might break everything. What A MAN SHOULD do in his current circumstances was unknowable and ineffable. It just circled around inside of him, caged and electric.

Hell, he could even break himself.

Myra didn’t seem to notice Ken’s struggling. And it did help that she, without being asked, made dinner, put a plate in front of him, and then cleaned up afterwards. While humming what sounded like farmwork ditties from the Dust Bowl. She even wore a checkerboard apron, which complemented her newly rosy cheeks. She made sure that he enjoyed dinner, asking several times, and preening when he said-- good job. Thanks.

Ken hadn’t had the heart to tell her that she’d made two bowls of popcorn for dessert, and eaten three of them herself. She’d quietly stopped wearing a bra.

He was changing and changing. Ken was taller, much taller, and that there were added lines and definition to his biceps that hadn’t been there before. The fresh-faced boy with a dust beard wasn’t in the mirror anymore, and was really just gone. He was a new man. This version was craggier. He scowled, and the mirror felt it.

And yet. He still had the same useless pussy and he still had tits, even if they were now small, tight, and vestigial to a washboard stomach. Even if they were mostly nipples.

Ken masturbated, because A MAN SHOULD jerk off from time to time, he figured. He should’ve been grabbing a mighty cock. And spurting. He would’ve really enjoyed spurting. Spurting sounded like it was a lot of fun.

But although his clit was aching to be touched, and bright red, and sticking straight up, it was not a penis. It was not going to spurt anything. Ken had the kind of orgasm he didn’t want, that butted heads with the white-hot commands firing through him. It was still a slow, full-body orgasm, the kind to sink into, and not a growling, grunting crescendo. He wicked away tears from his eyes and felt bad about that, too. The hell was he doing, crying? Why did he even have tear ducts, what did a man need those for?

The clock in Myra’s guest bedroom read 1 a.m. He could hear her panting from the other room. She was obviously masturbating just as hard as he was, possibly more, given the multiple throaty moans echoing through the thin farmhouse walls. A MAN SHOULD burst into her room and sink multiple inches into her, each one a new revelation to the quivering girl.

‘Awwwhhhhhhh myyyyy gawwwwhhhhhhhhhddddddddd!” she screamed.

It was too much.

Ken burst out of the house. It felt great to run. He was stronger, faster. He was adding upper-body muscle fiber at a rapid clip. He ran the three miles into town without feeling winded in the slightest.

The gym was open at two in the morning, lights blazing from the inside. The electricity had been shut off by the bank, or the power company, or whoever. The men had swung that with a generator bank that the shut-down hospital no longer needed. They weren’t using their emergency battery either. The solar panels were from the supermarket, which no longer needed them. It didn’t provide unlimited juice, but that was okay. There was plenty of juice in the boys and girls.

The interior had been kitted out with donated full-body mirrors. Mostly from the shut down clothing stores, but also generally from town residents, whose bodies and therefore minds had become so much more generous. While some residents liked to flex and pose, or see themselves plow a hot, willing slut, others felt -- they knew what they looked like. They looked hot as fuck. So what was a mirror for? The mirrors had been secured in their patchwork frames, some gilt, others basic black.

A half-dozen men were working out. Legs. It was leg hour. They were all stripped to the waist, and they all wore basketball shorts.

Ken stripped off his shirt. His binder was screaming at him, not from the pressure of holding back his remaining boobs, which were mostly nipples, now. The strain of that plus burgeoning new muscles. He ignored it. A MAN SHOULD ignore discomfort, definitely. Until it bled. Instead he threw makeshift weight onto one of the hacked off street poles. Lumps of iron with ‘30 lbs’ written on it with sharpie.

More weight. More.

The bros in the background looked at each other. They didn’t say ‘bruh’. There was no need.

The bench was a wooden ironing board, reinforced with metal strips, and held up with cemented blocks. Ken took hold of the bar. This was reckless, angry behavior, and that made it perfect. He picked it up. He did a single, perfect rep at 580 pounds.

It was a tremendous relief. Every ounce of him had to turn to the task of keeping him alive. The bar was right above his throat. He held it there. If it dropped, it’d crush his brand new adam’s apple.

And that was all he could do. Even the chemicals wilding through his bloodstream, rummaging through his biceps, couldn’t do any more. Ken held the bar until his arms shook. If he dropped it, it would be as a man. He’d choke as a man. There was-- IT WAS--- A MAN SHOULD. He was ready to yell it. Yes.

Four enormous hands took the bar.

‘Bro,” one said, wearing a white headband. “That was very dangerous and also you look really dehydrated.”

“What color is your pee?” a second man said, gently setting the bar back in the slot. This one was bald, very bald.

“I don’t--- I don’t know,” Ken said. He sat up. “Probably pink or something.” A MAN SHOULD definitely not cry or anything. He wiped at his eyes. He’d have to weld them shut.

“I bet it’s like, dark brown,” Headband said. “I’m gonna get you an energy drink, they are fuckin’ amazing. And just fuckin’ cry, I can tell you’re holding it in. Just wipe down the bench after, alright?”

---

“Ohhh I see the problem. Sucking is the issue. Switch loadout,” Gwendolyn said. She shifted her weight, and giggled, on mic.

Her voice was changing, almost from round to round. She’d never done vocal training and hadn’t tried. Even the cis girls in Ruhk had voices marked with the frost and the mud, and sounded like they had inhaled diesel fumes in the womb.

But now she was soft, sparkling, breathy, and, definitely, horny. She was PURRING. Audrey tried to consider what was happening, but Gwendolyn wouldn’t let her. They raced between matches in a horny, happy fog. She only stopped briefly, to drink water, and could only idly wonder why the tap was coming out pink.

The boys hated her, and Gwendolyn was glorifying it. She wasn’t even playing well-- hard to, when her body wanted to be groped, and her thighs were shivering with need. She kept taking her hands off the gamepad to rub herself.

“God, fuck you, can’t you just stream your titties and keep ranked matches out of it?” some boy told her. Her!

“Ohhhhh they keep getting in the way! It’s hard for me to see the screen with my massive boobs covering up the scoreboard!” Gwendolyn said. That was her name. It said so on her character. And-- it was kind of true, wasn’t it? She had titties. Big, beautiful titties. She tittered again.

“Turn your camera on,” a boy urged. “Lets see.”

Audrey forced her hand away from the camera button. But why? It was hard to recall.

---

They’d given him a homemade energy drink. Or perhaps it was a protein shake, Ken wasn’t sure. It fizzed and bubbled, each pungent pop scented like a foundry. It tasted like iron and copper, maybe mixed with uranium. It was so bright blue it was hard to look at.

“What’s in this?” Ken asked, after crushing his first one. It tasted great, although it made his mouth taste like it had fought a roll of pennies. “Actually, nevermind. It’s fine. Can I have another?” No. Demand it. “Give me another.”

“I don’t know whats in it either,” Headband admitted. He and Bald had sat down on the bench, on either side of Ken. “I’ve been drinking, like, a dozen or so a day, though. It’s pretty fuckin’ crazy shit. Like, when I started working out I was always skipping leg day, because I couldn’t walk.”

“Bro was in a wheelchair,” Bald said.

Headband nodded, soberly. “Yeah. And I had a lot of health problems. I mean I’m sixty-three, like, you should, but this stuff just fuckin crushes shit like fuckin MS. It’s fuckin crazy.”

“Yeah, Dr. Gauri had me come by, she said she was tired of me being depressed and having ongoing suicidality, she thought maybe some reps and the juice would help,” Bald said. “Hell YEAH they did! It does like, reps in your brain.”

“You sweated that shit out bro,” Headband said. The two of them had lats and delts that Ken couldn’t even see. The bench squeaked beneath their might. Headband looked maybe thirty-one years old. “You know this guy did all the knots on the pulldown machines we made, he put that noose knowledge to WORK.”

“Dr. Gauri,” Ken said, and took another swig of bubble man juice to tamp down on the anger surge. There was no way to stop it. It flowed so easily now, the streams of simple and straightforward rage. “Yeah. Fuck her though? Fuck her? Fuck her and fuck me and fuck this--- everything. But thanks for the juice.”

“Bro you are simmering. You are so fucking angry. You are like, a ten out of...” Bald was stumped by this. He looked to Headband for help.

“Ten,” Headband said, eventually. “Remember? Like, numbers? We did this with the whole, how many days in a week there are talk we had. Anyway. It’s a beautiful night. We’re sweaty. We’re drinking mysterious muscle juice. Why’d you stomp in mad?”

“It’s the only thing about being a guy I can actually pull off,” Ken said. “Just being an angry piece of shit. It’s the only thing I can do. That I know how to do. Like, nothing else is right, but I can do that. So I GOTT-- I gotta do it. I should do it.”

He finished his muscle fizz and crushed it in his hand. They were refilled coke cans. With just a little pressure he could reduce them to tiny aluminum discs. He was pretty strong. It had nearly killed him, but he had benched six hundred pounds, if the sharpie writing on the weights could be believed.

“Bro it makes me super sad to hear that,” Headband said. He wiped at his eyes, which were leaking bright blue tears. They seemed to be fizzy, too. “That’s super fuckin sad. That’s like saying you don’t know how to cook, but at least you can eat dirt. I guess. Man, sometimes I miss doing like... metaphors and shit.”

Bald scratched at his head. He was, Ken noticed, sweating blue sweat. Still. The drink was really good. And it was like holding manhood in his grip. If testosterone was an ingredient, he would not have been surprised.

“Bro probably had a bad male role model that established anger as the dominant male trait, and then that plus the dysphoria led to bro enshrining a toxic masculine standard that bro nonetheless felt he couldn’t live up to,” Bald said.

Headband whistled, impressed.

“So I guess I’m not passing,” Ken said, bitterly.

“Bro, your pants split open, during that death rep you did,” Headband said. He put an arm around Ken. “Look--”

Ken hit the arm off. “No,” he said flatly. “You’re gonna tell me that being mad isn’t part of being a guy. But it is. We all know it is. Like, its nice to pretend we can just bro around with big dopey muscles and big stupid grins but it’s always there, watching. And what, you’re just gonna do some therapyspeak at it and it’ll not be real? Is that really MANLY? Come the FUCK ON!”

“A man can fucking CRUSH at therapy if he tries,” Headband rumbled.

The three of them sat side by side, manspreading, contemplating their gender.

“But bro is right,” Bald rumbled. He rubbed his manly chest. “We all bear a heart of darkness. It’s a sin that sits in all of us. The flame always flickers.”

Ken’s third bottle of Man Drink was in an emptied out flower vase. He killed it, then hurled the empty across the room. It shattered into bright blue shards against a concrete patch on the far end, where plans were still getting put together for a Ninja Warrior style challenge course. It still wasn’t clear to the builders if they were going with a test of aerobic skill, or a timed fucking platform, or both. The pommelhorse they’d found was a source of energetic debate.

“Bro...” Headband said, watching the glass skitter. “We’re going to agree to disagree on the centrality of anger to male identity. And then we’re gonna do the one thing we all know is masculine as FUCK. And that’ll help. It’ll be a displacement activity.”

Ken stood up. Not again.

“Dick down some girl until she can’t move,” Ken nearly shouted it. The other bodybuilders were watching them. “That’s the problem! That’s why I’m-- I’m so fucking mad! How big are your dicks?”

“I haven’t checked in a bit,” Bald said, thoughtfully. He looked down his waistband. “Oh, Bro.”

“When did that happen?” Headband said, also checking. He looked at Bald. “I bet we can lift with these.”

“And I didn’t get one! And everyone in town has these twelve inch pythons that can probably touch her tonsils from all entrances! It’s---” Ken pounded the wall. “Fucking!” Another pound. “Frustrating!” He took a chunk out of the concrete. He really was strong as hell.

“Bro,” Headband stood up. Handling and observation had made his dick hard. Now it stuck out in his own basketball shorts, impossibly long. It was even possible to tell how thick it was. “This is it. This is the problem. Dicking down a girl is not about having an awesomely big cock. Having a big cock, that turns girls into pussy jelly, is in your MIND.”

He said it with capital letters. Ken had to listen.

“He’s right,” Bald agreed. “You gotta have huge cock BRAIN. Look, there’s plenty of room in there, these days, you know?” He tapped his skull. “You can fit a lot of dick in here. Here, bro, go try it out. Go be a guy with penis mentality. Go fuck a girl, see if it helps. Can’t hurt. Go make a girl cum and see if it makes you feel like a bro. There’s a girl.”

They both turned to the girl that had shown up, uncertain, in the gym entrance. She wore a straw hat and a faded flannel, which failed to conceal how big her tits had gotten. Her jean shorts also didn’t hide the ample curves of her new thighs, and she had added another dot line of freckles across her nose. Myra.

---

Things were moving fast for her. The boys on the stream had set up a makeshift channel.

Gwendolyn had run around her library, getting set. The lost and found had netted her a forgotten swimsuit, from some previous summer. The bikini string barely held in her titties, which were riding high and firm and very big.

It was a good start, but the girl in the mirror was hardly a horny streamer slut, and Gwendolyn couldn’t figure out why that was. A lollipop from the other librarian’s hidden candy stash helped, and she could easily enough put her hair into two twin bobs. For her big debut she heaped the plushies in a sort of throne around her.

It still wasn’t enough until a visitor had shown up. A girl from town, searching for a sister, now needing a bathroom badly. Her name was Louise, and she couldn’t quite remember her sister’s name, after way too many eclairs. She had blush and lipstick in her bag, and was eager to let Gwendolyn borrow them.

“Okay, guys!” Gwendolyn said, flicking the camera on.

“Oh shit, face reveal,” one of the guys said.

Audrey waited for one of them to say-- what she expected. About the chin. About everything.

“Can we see tits?” another boy said.

Gwendolyn grinned, and pulled her shirt up. After she played with them for a bit, Louise joined the stream for kisses, which was a huge hit.

---

“You runs off,” Myra said. She was scared, Ken realized. She was shivering, despite it being a balmy night, the moon warm under a scatter of low clouds. “I come looking for you and you was gone and I was-- ummm---” she stuck her fingers in her mouth, a silly and dumb move that looked perfect on her. “worried!”

They walked through New Ruhk, the repurposed chain stores and shanty town centered around the Bakery. It was busy late in the night, the lights burning, strange scents puffing from a makeshift chimney. The air smelled like new kinds of spices.

A MAN SHOULD. He’d run through his anger, and the weights and the drinks had burned it, and now there was-- a chance to be something else. He’d briefly outrun his Dad, first time he’d ever done that. A MAN SHOULD comfort the girl. Be her rock of stability and support.

It helped that Bald and Headband had followed them outside, and Headband had put his arm around Bald, to demonstrate. They gave him two big, meaty thumbs-up. Ken slipped his arm around Myra. She drank in it, a half-whimper, half-moan, and sank into his shadow. He was so much taller than her now. Or maybe Myra was shorter. She was definitely wider and dumber.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Ken said. “I’m a delivery guy in your guest bedroom. I’m the guy who spills seeds all over. And I’m like six three now.”

“We got’s to-- umm-- escape?” Myra said. She took a deep breath, and he could feel her relax into him. He was getting his sweat all over her. A MAN SHOULD have his girl smell like him.

“Myra, you’re all tits and ass now, and I can tell you’d fuck a hairbrush if left alone with it,” Ken said, gently. “You can’t escape yourself. You’re just gonna have big titties, each one the size of your entire head. Lets sit down.”

He sat down, and put her on top of him, facing outward. A MAN SHOULD gently put his arms around his girl, and then gently start to fondle her tits. His own were just unusually large nipples now, gracefully deflating against his powerful chest, with its thick sinews.

“N-no,” Myra said, as he started to feel her up. “Um. I gots a car. We can-- drive and stuff. And stuff?”

“Myra, you’ve got this dumb accent now, and I don’t even know what it’s supposed to be. I think it’s Naive Farmer’s Daughter. And we could’ve left Ruhk days ago. Me too. You know why we didn’t?”

“Ummm,” she was sinking into his strong grip. She was going to let him make the decisions. Her body was so warm and soft. Ken fought off another wave of dysphoria, using her. She was so unlike him, so pliable and grippable, so unlike the hard, muscle-wrapped skin he had. He was going to hold on and not let go. He put a finger between her thighs. He was cock-brained. He was dick-minded. It was in there, inside him, glorious. It was enormous and powerful.

“You’re a wet silly slut now,” Ken said, pressing in. He stuck two fingers in her, and angled them up, to rub up and down on Myra’s clit. Myra tried to wake up half of Ruhk, with her silly-girl screech, but the strip mall residents had gotten used to girls shrieking. Ken didn’t let her go far, keeping her in an iron grip as she bucked against his hand. Her titties jiggled.

“M--- m’kayyyyyy!” Myra screeched, in his ear. Her slit gripped and squeezed him. She turned to him, and smiled, weakly, the last resistance giving way to a friendly and fun orgasm.

A MAN SHOULD--- it was pounding at him, suddenly, finding an opportunity. Grabbing it, grabbing him. A MAN SHOULD cum. A MAN SHOULD fuck. Ken could feel a wave of frustration so strong he would howl, and gibber, and instead he stood up, taking Myra with him. She was nearly boneless in his grip, and weighed nothing at all. He stomped her over to the nearest wall, which was luckily flat, and pinned her there, confused and soft. He dropped his shorts.

He was going to dick down this girl.

It wasn’t scissoring, the way he did it. Ken angled her hips and his. He was raw strength and physicality, and, besides, Myra would cum again if he put a dandelion in her. She was dripping onto Ruhk’s fertile ground. He would provide friction and energy, as A MAN SHOULD. Ken slammed into her, trusting in her new bubble butt, her padding, to protect her rear end. He nearly gasped, and then redirected it to a nice, manly growl. They were fucking. He was fucking her.

It felt fucking great to fuck a dumb bimbo slut.

And his clit was doing its best. It was longer and stronger, and it pulsed like it should. Close enough. His everything was the penis, anyway. His hands, his mouth, his scent. Myra was losing the ability to thrust back, which was fine. He could do it. In fact her eyes were rolling around in her head, overwhelmed by the heat, the scent, the steady rhythm he was pounding into her.

A MAN SHOULD.

He was.

“I’m cumming,” Ken told her, triumphant.

“Uhhhhwhhhhhhhhaaaaa,” Myra said, or something like that. She was drooling.

Ken came. A MAN SHOULD cum. It didn’t arrive with a big wet spray, but that, Ken thought, was fine. The important thing was, Myra gave him a big stupid smile, and then passed out, pussy drooling on the ground, completely, thoroughly, and competently dicked down.

---

“Mom?” Gwendolyn said.

“Ummm! Hi honey! I have a--- friend over!” Mom’s face was very flushed. She wore a pink nightie that would’ve looked old-fashioned, if she didn’t have big pink nipples spilling out of them. They looked at each other, Mom and Daughter, both leaking between the legs and highly distracted. Gwendolyn decided not to say anything about the obvious rope of jizz on Mom’s upper right tit, not to mention its counterpart, in her hair.

For her part, her Mom decided to say nothing about how the boots, the jeans, how the rough voice was gone, and how Gwendolyn wore a pair of fishnets, a pink glowing headset, and plaid scoop-neck top. With a white zip-up hoodie. They both had new voices, sex kitten sounding.

Similar genes meant similar outcomes. They both wanted to have their butts fingered.

Truce, they agreed.

“This is Louise,” Gwendolyn said, drawing her in. Louise said hi with a soft giggle of her own. She was kinda dumb. “She helped me get like, ten billion followers on social.”

“Hi Louise!” Mom said. She smiled, and put her hand on her doorknob. Her friend grunted something masculine, from the other side of the door. “Lets talk-- later! Much later. Okay, Audrey?”

“Gwendolyn,” Gwendolyn said. “It’s Gwendolyn.” For now. There were even more feminine names, she was sure. Tiffi was starting to sound attractive. But she’d see how this worked out, first.

 

---

“There’s done been a delivery!” Myra said.

Ken took a moment to parse that. His dear, dumb Myra had never quite figured out what Horny Stupid Farmer Girl Accent actually meant. Sometimes it was questionably southern, other times it veered close to Canadian. It was probably offensive, if anyone could possibly be offended by Myra. She was mostly butt and corn.

“More legal papers?” he said. Myra shrugged, and handed them to her man. She lived in denim and not much else, with a straw hat when she was outside. Her thighs were getting a nice tan, despite how often he had his hands on them.

“I’s supposing!” Myra said. Even she was confused by that one. Ken took the sheaf of papers and glanced at them -- NOTICE OF LIEN, SECOND SUMMONS.

They pissed him off. Ken was still mad all the time. The water pump broke. The roof leaked. And it was never going to go away entirely, walking through town, seeing the boys casually hauling sausages around. It was always going to gnaw. But a man should use it. He’d fixed pump and roof, both late in the night. If he got frustrated, he fucked Myra. Or whoever. He’d gone back and fucked Morgan, and he’d apology-fucked Dr. Gauri so hard she’d taken the day off, and Ken had been the town doctor for that day. She still showed up from time to time, for more spankings.

He tossed the papers at the corn.

The stalks were waist high, which was probably alarming for a crop they’d planted a week and a half ago. They already had thick buds, and were going to hang heavy with produce. Ken and Myra were working nearly every daylight hour, with breaks on the hour for water and scissoring.

His common law farm wife turned back to the house, and he made sure to swat her ass. A man should do that. The capital letters had rounded themself down. Then, because he was not just a man, but her man, he picked her up, giggling, and put her over the side of the wagon they were using to plant potatoes. A few swift movements put her clothes on the ground, and she obediently set her feet in the dirt. Myra knew a lot of bracing was required, to be his farmer’s wife.

Ken helped by reaching around her with one hand to squeeze a vast, teardrop tit. A white fluid dribbled into his hand. Myra had started making milk a few days ago. It wasn’t clear how or why the same chems that had made others into pale gothic big-boobed girls had made his Myra into a freckled sun-kissed bimbo of the fields. But he loved it. He growled into her ear. WIth his other hand he pushed her pussy backwards, until it rubbed up against the short stalk of his clit.

He howled out his orgasm over the fields. Corn in his own fields, potatoes next to it, and they were going to start wheat soon.

Ken had been accumulating farmers.

The lien letter delivery girl was in the kitchen, gulping Myra’s cooking. An enormous stack of potato pancakes, topped with Myra’s special creamy butter. The very first pat of it, diligently churned from breast milk. And of course a healthy amount of Ruhk syrup, with its oily pink sheen. There was also potato chips with pink sprinkles and, for dinner, they were having baked gnocchi. Once the bakery had gotten going on Ken’s potato haul, it had really gotten going.

The girl had soft brown hair with, just like his wife, a few streaks of dye. Although Myra’s had sloughed off, leaving her a sunny golden blonde. She had the wild eyes of a newcomer to town, someone who couldn’t believe how much she was eating, and unsure if she could stop.

“Well, I’m Ken,” Ken said, settling across from her. Cute nose. It’d get cuter. The eyes were a highlight. He’d gotten into eyes, since most of the girls were pretty similar stacked sluts. These were a light blue despite her chestnut hair. Her mouth was coated pink. “I guess your employer wants to take this farm but, well, first you gotta work it. If you want more of these pancakes, and I bet you do.”

She started nodding, despite herself. They all did.

“She’s not comin’ for our farm, Ken! Her letter is for the book store or sumtin! Courtney sent her over!”

“Ohhhhhh,” Ken grunted.

He took another look at the girl.

Always nice to pass.

Ruhk had been flooded with debt collectors, process servers, and all the other machinery the world used when the bills stopped getting paid. They stopped for pastries.

And the word was out that certain of the visitors would benefit from a trip to see Ken. He already had five of them in the back forty, pulling up weeds, then coming back with strong appetites. He was most curious about Ray, who was scarfing up blue and pink in equal measure, and turning into who knew what. And there was Allen, who had cried with joy at getting swole, and had not a single angry bone in his body. An important lesson.

“Alright,” he said. A farmer had to see to the field. And she looked dazed enough. “Hands up, missy.”

The girl complied. Ken pulled her polo shirt with the process service logo on it off, tossed it in a corner. They could use the fabric. She was wearing a bra she didn’t need. Ken knew enough to leave it on. He did gently cup what she didn’t have. “These are gonna come in real nice,” he promised her. “I bet we get some cow tits, same as my wife’s fat knockers over there. We got Cristina and Becky out there and they’re getting backaches, ain’t that right, Myra.”

“Big ‘ol titties, Ken!” Myra added, and laughed.

The new girl found a hint of resistance, although she was still chewing. “But-- I’m---” it died on her lips, looking at him. He was six foot and really something else, and Ken knew-- there was a lot of authority in his shoulders. A lot of confidence in his sweat. He was working on it every day. Hell, he was nerving himself up for penetration. A man should be fine with anything, including taking ten inches of cock. Maybe even from this new girl.

“Stand up,” he ordered. The new girl complied. “You’re a farmer now. Hustle out to the barn and we’ll get you situated. We’ve got our first corn delivery on Saturday, and there’s lots to do.”

There was so much a man should do. He ordered them in his head, and decided to start with milking Myra.

THE END